His (3 page)

“That guy that comes in every couple weeks,” Jules said, motioning to the screen where a police captain was being interviewed.

“That’s really specific.”

“The professor who reads the shitty John Grisham knockoffs. You know, the one with the creepy look.”

“No way.” The screen switched over to a shot of the man with the mustache. I’d seen him just a few days earlier. He’d been checking out a book. Idly, I wondered if his family would bring back the book to the library.

“Way,” Jules said.

“Someone murdered him?”

“Well, he’s missing, anyway.”

“So he’s not murdered.”

“Oh, sure, he ran away to Costa Rica and left his wife and kid and six figure job. Yeah, right. Trust me, he was murdered. God, you have such a boring mind.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was murdered before.”

“Well, now you do,” Jules said, turning off the TV just as Sheryl rounded the corner, her face stuck in that perpetually pissed-off look that some bosses have. “And now he’s dead. Back to work, slacker.”

     Gav    

I told him not to move when I shaved his mustache off. He moved. Then the tablecloth was bloody. He didn’t start to scream until I began to shave a little deeper.

It was beautiful.

The begging, too, that was delicious to hear. It drove the shadow away. The blood spilled and made a mess, but it had to happen. He’d hurt his wife, and now he was being hurt. It made a kind of sense, didn’t it? And I did so love to hear him beg.

So many promises, this one.

“Let me go, and I’ll give you anything. As much money as you want.” His voice was whining, needy.

I gestured around me with my knife.

“You’ve seen my house,” I said. “Do you think I need money?”

“What do you want, then? Please. Please! I’ll give you anything.”

I couldn’t wait to cut out his tongue. Maybe in a few days. I poured water over his face and he drank it, lapped it up greedily like a dog. A thought was nagging me at the back of my head. Something I had forgotten. But no, I hadn’t forgotten anything. There were no tracks for anyone to follow.

The young woman at the library, the one who kissed me, came floating into mind. I pushed the thought away. Maybe I would go back and return the book, retrace my tracks, make sure I hadn’t missed anything. What could I have missed? Still, the nagging thought at the back of my brain kept itching. The shadow darkened my vision and brought me back to my world, to the dead man who did not know he was dead lying on my kitchen table.

“Please,” he continued. “What can I do? What do you want from me?”

“Right now?” I raised my eyebrows. “Right now, I want you to suffer.”

“Suff-” his words cut off as I came towards him again with the knife. “No, please. Oh god, please, no!”

“Scream,” I whispered, bringing my knife down to his cheek.

He obliged.

CHAPTER THREE

     Kat    

It was a few days more before the man came back to the library, fifteen minutes before closing. Not the mustache man—Jules was right about that, he was gone for good, probably murdered—but the handsome one. The one I’d kissed. The dark-haired, light-eyed Fabio.

Boring old me stayed away. I didn’t want to scare him off. This was the only time he’d been back since the first time I’d seen him, when I’d kissed him. And as strict as Sheryl was about helping library patrons, I thought that I would be more help not scaring him out of the library again with a random kiss.

I stayed in the kids’ section and shelved picture books, watching as he went up into the stacks and dreaming about all of the dark, terrible, wonderful things he could do to me if he had me in bed. Then he came back down and started to head out of the library. .

My hand reached back into my jeans pocket. I hadn’t done laundry in two weeks, and the slip of paper was still stuffed into my back pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it. Random numbers and letters. But it was something to start a conversation about. I could talk to him.

“Hey, you dropped this last time you were here. So what’s important about this code, anyway?”

I didn’t know why I was so hell-bent on talking to him again, anyway. If anyone asked, I would probably tell them it was Jules breaking my balls, calling me boring every two minutes and asking me if I’d ever kiss a boy again. I wasn’t boring, dammit!

But the real reason I clocked out early and scooted after him?

I wanted to kiss him again.

I wanted to feel that passion.

I wanted to know if his mind was as dark as mine.

In the parking lot, I saw him get into a silver Kia sedan. A boring car, Jules would say. He was too far away to run after, and I thought about giving up and going back inside. Finishing up the picture books section. He probably didn’t need the slip of paper, anyway.

But then I changed my mind. The kids’ books could wait. What if the paper I had from him was super important? What if he was a secret agent and the paper I had was a secret code? And—bigger question—
what if he kissed me again?
So I hopped into my black Honda Civic, possibly the only car more boring than a silver Kia, and drove off after him.

I’d seen enough cop shows to know how to tail someone. Stay behind, but not too far behind. Don’t let traffic lights get between you. Have a boring car. Check! It also helped that the car between us was full of five college frat boys hanging out the windows and blasting music. If he ever looked in his rearview mirror, all he would see was
Animal House
on wheels.

A rush of excitement went through me as I followed him. I was off work, and instead of going out to bars, I was chasing a sexy guy who might even be a secret agent! There was no way Jules could call me boring after this. Okay, so he probably wasn’t a secret agent. But at least I could pretend he was for now.

I crawled behind him from light to light, and he never noticed me. I supposed that this might be a good career for an average-looking girl with an average-looking figure. Men never noticed me: I would make a great undercover cop. I made a mental note to ask the career counselor about it.

Soon, he turned off of the main street and headed out of town. I lagged behind; there weren’t any intersections on this road. He kept driving, and more than once I thought that I was crazy to keep following him.

Why? Why did I keep following?

I don’t know, not really. I wanted to see what was hidden in those eyes. I wanted to know what the important code was. I wanted to ask him why he wouldn’t date. Or if it was just that he wouldn’t date me. There was something mysterious about chasing after a guy I didn’t know, and my heart beat faster as I drove, excitement pumping through my veins.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Jules. At least I could let her know where I was, in case this guy
did
turn out to be a secret agent. But the little bars on my screen were gone: no reception out here in the mountains. Frowning, I tossed my phone down on the passenger seat. I would just have to tell her about my adventure later.

His car led me to the outside of town and into the nearby mountains. I slowed even more. The sun was dipping down below the tops of the mountains and I could see his red taillights clearly as he took the curves around the mountain bends.

What on earth was I doing? I was wasting so much gas driving out here. For a split second I considered turning around, but then his car turned into a long driveway. I drove up to the driveway just as his car went around the curve inside. I parked on the dirt pullout and hopped out.

Maybe I should just leave the slip of paper in his mailbox. The metal gate that barred the driveway was swinging shut slowly. I really shouldn’t go running off after him. What would he think of me showing up on his doorstep, with nothing but a stupid scrap of paper with some numbers on it?

But it said
IMPORTANT
.

Just as the gate was about to shut, I darted inside. The metal clanged as the gate locked behind me.

“Seriously, Kat,” I said to myself. “What the
hell
are you doing?”

I felt utterly stupid. I had driven all the way out here, and for what? Nothing. I considered my options:

1. Climb back over the fence, go home, and feel like an idiot.

2. Ring the doorbell and... feel like an idiot.

“ARGH!” I pressed my forehead against the metal gate, looking at my car through the bars. This was ridiculous.

“Yes, this is ridiculous, Kat,” I told myself. “You wanted to play Nancy Drew, well, here’s your goddamn chance. Stop being a boring idiot. Okay? Okay.”

With that settled, I turned around and looked up the curving driveway in the middle of the forest. Every step I took put one more butterfly in my stomach

I couldn’t even see his house from the road. Huge pine trees cut off the view after about fifty feet of road. I swallowed. If he was a secret agent, wouldn’t he have some kind of security system? What if I got shot or caught in a trap before I reached the house?

“Shut up and walk, Nancy Drew. He’s not a secret agent, and you’re not going to get shot.”

I walked boldly down the driveway, and when I turned the last curve I couldn’t help but gasp.

The house was a gorgeous two-story log cabin, with a giant stone chimney stretching out over the tops of the pines. It was incredible that I hadn’t been able to see it from the road, but it was tucked away into the side of the mountain.

“Wow,” I said.

It seemed stupid, but I felt like a total badass. I’d followed Fabio all the way up here without getting seen
and
I’d slipped through the gate. No matter what, I could go back to Jules with an interesting story.

I went to the front door, but there was no doorbell. As I raised my hand to knock, I heard something from the back, somebody yelling. Then it stopped.

“Hello?” I said. Nobody answered.

“Okay, Nancy Drew, you know what to do now.”

Actually, I knew exactly what NOT to do. Normal, boring Kat would have put the slip of paper on the doormat and ran away. But I was curious, and today I was determined not to let myself get in the way of... myself.

With newfound courage, I crept along the side of the house. There was a light on in a room near the back corner, and I made my way through the side yard landscaping, dodging the rose bushes that were planted under the windows. I reached the lit window and, standing on tiptoe, peeked up over the edge of the windowsill.

What did I expect to see when I peeked into the window? I don’t know. Fabio sitting in an armchair, reading a book he’d checked out from the library, maybe. I imagined that he would see me and laugh, invite me in for a drink, put on some music and tell me that he was kidding, that actually he would
love
to date me. We would dance and talk and make love all night.

Instead, what I saw made me scream.

Not scream, exactly. More like a terrified mix between a gasp and a yelp that I tried to stop as soon as it came out of my stupid, stupid mouth. Because when I looked into the window, I saw a room with a single metal table and a man strapped down,
covered
in blood. Standing over him was the handsome man from the library.

My Fabio.

Holding a knife.

It might have been the professor on the table. I didn’t know. I didn’t
want
to know. As I yelped, my hand slipped and hit the windowpane, and if my half-scream hadn’t gotten his attention, the loud clunk sure did. Both of the men turned to look at me. Fabio’s dark eyes narrowed to slits, locking on mine. My mouth went dry.

Jesus, it’s real. He’s not a secret agent. He’s the killer. Holy fuck.

“Help!
Help
!” The man on the table began yelling at the top of his lungs, which made me jump again—I’d thought he was dead. Fabio walked around the table toward the window, still carrying the knife. I stumbled back and fell right on my ass under the window. The rose bushes scratched my arm badly as I fell, but I barely noticed the pain. I was too busy freaking the fuck out. I couldn’t go back around to the front - he’d be right there. Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.

I scrambled to my feet in a panic and ran for the forest in a blind sprint. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for. Nancy Drew had walked into the last chapter of a Stephen King novel, and she was getting the hell out of there. Behind me I could hear the door opening. Fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

I pumped my arms and legs, trying to gain speed. I was already into the trees, and I could see ahead of me the driveway curving into view, the metal gate I would have to climb over. I angled slightly toward the driveway. Good. Perfect. A shortcut to the exit.

Just as I was coming out of the treeline onto the driveway, my foot caught a tree root. I stumbled, rolling my ankle and falling to the ground. I gasped in pain as I got up to my knees. Hot agony shot up the side of my leg, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t. My mind screamed:
Go, go, GO!

I scrambled forward on the driveway, the paved surface hot under my scraped hands.

I struggled to get to my feet but stopped dead in my tracks, half-kneeling in the middle of the driveway. My heart dropped down into my stomach.

Standing right there, right in front of the metal gate, was Fabio, the knife held loosely by his side. I hadn’t even heard him come up from behind.

His eyes were so calm that for a split second, I was calm, too. As though nothing was wrong with me trespassing and witnessing a murder. I half-expected Jules to jump out from behind a tree and yell that I’d been pranked. The blood, though, dripping off the point of his knife - that was real. His eyes followed mine to the knife. Then he spread his arms wide and dropped the weapon to the ground. It clattered dully against the driveway.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

     Gav    

“Don’t be afraid,” I said.